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CRAZY FEASTS

MARILYN EKDAHL RAVICZ

The cover is a painting by Jan Mandijn entitled “Burlesque Feast”, c. 1550. Its use has been authorized under the Creative Commons licensure afforded by Wikipedia for works of art, along with given rights for acknowledged publication.

Copyright 2016 Marilyn Ekdahl Ravicz,

All rights reserved.

Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com

http://www.eBookIt.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-2787-4

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

FICTION

Requiem for Córdoba

Alexandre and Simone: the Two Musketeers

Blood, Soil and Art

Love Song for Dancing Strings

Murder as a Second Language

Alexandria: Cloud-Cuckoo-Town

Crossing to Samarkand

NON FICTION

Early Colonial Religious Drama in Mexico: From Tzompantli to Golgotha

Ken Friedman: the World that Is, the World That Is to Be

Erotic Cuisine: A Natural History of Aphrodisiac Cookery

Ergonomics for Home-based Workers: Use your Brain to Save your Body

TO BOB, TO LIFE, AND TO OUR MANY CRAZY FEASTS

OF HEART AND MIND

And let us honor the joyous hours of crazy mental feasts that Monty Python’s Flying Circus gave to us. Here’s to their

Theme: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life:

So remember when you’re feeling small and insecure,

How amazingly unlikely is your birth,

And pray there’s intelligent life out there in space

‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth.

‘With good friends….And good food on the board, and good wine in the pitcher, we may well ask: When shall we live if not now?”

M.F.K. Fisher, The Art of Living.

Author’s note

The idea for Crazy Feasts, which is a blend of history, fiction and cookbook, tweaked my interest while researching materials for a previous work: Erotic Cuisine:A Natural History of Aphrodisiac Cookery. The tweaking persisted until I succumbed and wrote this culinary history cookbook as personal catharsis.

The histories of religion, anthropology, literature, drama, art and music are littered with descriptions of and references to food, banquets and ritual feasting. Some of the feasts described appear so crazy – by reason of content or context – that they begged for attention, or at least a hearty laugh. The laugh didn’t last long enough, so this book inevitably happened. As a Cultural Anthropologist, part of my beat is learning about social patterns that appear cross-culturally with regularity and, not surprisingly, the universal urge to hold celebratory feasts fits one example nicely.

My thanks to the many friends who shared in our many straight or crazy banquets, and to the memories of those who helped prepare some of the recipes I’ll offer you. We survived co-chef kitchen warfare to remain best friends. You know who you are or were in case you have now celebrated reincarnation.

The books and articles from which I quote material are cited in the text and bibliography. For those presses which did not respond to my requests for citation permissions (I’ve waited more than three years), I hereby thank you in absentia, and have properly noted the cited sources in the text and bibliography.

The bibliography at the end lists the most relevant publications reviewed and referenced for this book, much of which was simply learned through many years of fieldwork data (I’m a Cultural Anthropologist), notes, directed research, cooking with friends and from gossip during our own occasional crazy feasts. I also wish to thank Project Gutenberg for the privilege of using their resources in those chapters where they are noted. This wonderful service is mentioned at the end of the bibliography. Garnering information and materials this way still seems like the best kind of sheer magic to me.

In short, friends and I have held some crazy feasts of our own; however, those tales will be told some dark and stormy night around a campfire, while tempting wary spirits with gourmet toasted marshmallows rolled in crushed almonds. And, dear readers, I acknowledge you in advance and wish you well if, having read this culinary history and its recipes, you decide to host some crazy feasts of your own.

Marilyn Ekdahl Ravicz, Ph.D.